After the Apocalypse
by Kourion
Summary: "I'm lost in thought, studying the photo - the black and white photo of Franky squished between her two dads, smiling so warmly that an outsider would never suspect such a tortured past." Franky focused/ Minky-tones/ noncon warning/ ON HOLD indefinitely. If you'd like to continue on, shoot me a message.
1. Chapter 1

**Title - After the Apocalypse**

**Author - Kourion **

**Summary: **_"One need not be a chamber to be haunted. The brain has corridors surpassing material place."_/ Franky-centered/ noncon warning.

**A/N: **this fic might stay a one-shot, or it might morph into a multi-chapter fic. Please note: this story is written in a very, very atypical format. Experimental, you could call it. It may not be your cup of tea for that reason, or - more likely, due to violence and noncon situations detailed within. Proceed with caution.

* * *

"One need not be a chamber to be haunted.

One need not be a house.

The brain has corridors surpassing material place."

_-Emily Dickinson_

_

* * *

_

**_When I died - the girl-me (the Francesca me) was wearing a pink sweater. Mary Jane shoes, black. A mother-of-pearl clip in my hair. Red and white underwear. A patchwork skirt that I had made on my first sewing machine (my first Christmas gift, from my dads). _**

**_And slouch socks._**

**_There's something so pathetically innocent about slouch socks._**

* * *

**f r a n k y ' s P O V**

* * *

I'm cold.

If I wasn't such a freaky little _baby_, I'd just get up and go to the hall closet not even 20 feet away, and grab my checked comforter. _Maybe the hot water bottle as well, while I'm at it._

But it's dark. Dark and spooky. And -_ let's face it_ - no hot water bottle in the world is going to fix _this_.

This clawing coldness. Because the cold isn't an external cold at all.

_**I'm cold inside.**_

_**

* * *

**_

_It's raining. _I can hear the pattering of the water hitting the gutters. I can smell the scent of freshly watered earth and the dying aroma of field roses.

Rain used to be this lulling, gentle sound. I used to listen to it, fondly, as it hit the tinny roof of the children's centre when I stayed there between placements. Between foster homes.

The rain... it calmed me down, and made me want to sleep. Now, the rain reminds me of that night.

Now, the rain reminds me of _walking home, alone. Already feeling so icy that I could be a phantom, a ghost._

Now, each drop that hits our brick flat seems anything but lulling.

The rain is a testament to the fact that nature carries right on.

...

...

So all I can do is hope.

Hope that there's no one walking home in it, tonight.

* * *

Not being able to turn off your mind is a kind of torture.

To think of the past, and to want to go back...back to the furthest roots of your being to fix everything is an exercise in grief.

_That's what I felt then. Grief._

And now, too...though the sensation of grief feels more...ephemeral as of late.

Less of a stabbing hurt. More diffuse. A psychic pain akin to bone pain.

A deep bone _ache_.

* * *

_'"What's done is done, Clever Cloggs. You have to accept that,"_ my older Dad always tells me. Not to be flippant, I'm sure.

He just doesn't want me to grieve. Especially for something he can't fix.

_{Can never fix.}_

Over something that's..._unfixable._

* * *

I was there, once.

More than once.

In that pitch blackness of my mind.

It didn't even feel like my mind, if you want to know the truth. I didn't recognize the thoughts and feelings as being..._me._ Total disconnection. Total shut-down mode. Really, I was just some frightened little _woodland creature, bleeding into the earth. Unmoving. _

_**{****Waiting to be finished off.}**_

That's how I felt that night.

In Oxford.

And in the nights that followed, too, before we moved. Nights I spent crying near-soundlessly (or, what I thought was near-soundlessly) into my pillow. Crying, crying, and then dragging the sodden thing away when my tears had soaked entirely through the material. The substance.

_{when is a pillow no longer a pillow? when is a body no longer yours?}_

My pillow might as well be a wet, cold appendage. An extension of me.

* * *

I try to stay busy.

If I'm busy, I don't think about it so much.

That helps.

* * *

Music - lots of it, always changing. Sometimes loud, drowning out my dad's tedious knocking as rap on my door, after I've ignored their calls for dinner.

Or I sew. Various and sundry. Although I'm partial for the vaudeville look at the moment. It's surreal in this way that cloaks, covers...even changes me into someone else, from a different _time. _Or sometimes I crotchet animals that I line up along my bed. Cool colours. Blues and greens. Elephants, mostly. Sometimes turtles._ Never birds. _

And sometimes I work on my stop motion animation. I don't know exactly where the story is going, or how it will end. But the premise is simple enough: a man is trying to find his way back to something resembling civilization following catastrophic global ruin.

After the apocalypse.

And everything has changed into something putrid and destructive. New putrid lives, borne of radiation and cannibalistic greed...clamoring after him, and claiming him as the final victim.

In this world, people have became monsters, the crows have became watchers, and the moon has became a cold, unfeeling spectator.

_{After awhile, I couldn't even make myself scream. I just stayed very, very still and stared at the moon. S__o that's what I take away from Oxford. The symbols. The icons of my life there: crows, the rain, my blood, and the moon.}_

Which is a pretty morbid story, in a sense. Poor little wooden man! Will **_no one _**help him?

_Insert violin music..._

Of course, I do try to be kind. I take him with me to school, sometimes. Just to give him a bit of a reprieve. To get away from the fire and the crows, and the monsters.

In fact, the wooden man might just survive.

Because I can hear him, even if no one else can.

And even if only one person hears his cries...that might just be enough.

Just one person needs to help.

* * *

Sometimes knitting doesn't help. Nor sewing. Nor listening to music or anything else that I routinely do to _"keep busy." _So sometimes I can't help but cry, if you want to know the truth. And - _what's more_ - I hate crying more than anything else, really. It's my weakness, exposed. Because I'd rather feel wretched, but keep that wretchedness inside. Where no one can ever see. Where it's private.

But, maybe, not letting it out has its own price.

Because, one day, not too long ago... it suddenly felt like too much. And I thought I was dying. Or going crazy.

So I did the only thing that could ground me. Something so freakish, that my younger Dad, seeing me wince when I put on my jacket, grabbed hold of me at breakfast the next morning (while I was hen pecking my corn flakes) and pushed my plaid shirt up beyond my elbow. And just...kept it there, the shirt sleeve. Even as I desperately tugged at it with my other hand and actually _(truly!_) screamed at him to** let me go! **To**leave me alone!**

But he didn't. He _wouldn't. _And when Jeff got home later, it just got worse.

It became this whole _big thing. _

Apparently, it's not normal to burn yourself with a lighter. Even if it helps you focus.

Even if it blots out everything **worse** and makes it seem like you can breathe again.

* * *

Sometimes, one of my Dads will come and just wait it out with me. Those anxiety attacks.

Often, it keeps them from becoming full blown panic episodes, hyperventilation and all.

But can you really help how you're _created?_ And even if you wanted to, how do you desensitise yourself _properly_? I mean, I tried once with my good ole' friend fire and... nearly got _sectioned. _So I let my Dads sit there with me, if they want. I mean, if they were going to give up on me, they'd have done it already, right? And if a tacit agreement to just sit there, in the dark, is what they think will help me form a bond, an attachment _("you've got to learn to trust people. No one is an Island!")... _then who am I to argue?

I mean, they're gay. But they are not fucked in the head like I am. And that's got to count for something.

Anyway, who knows: maybe one day it'll click for me. An acceptance that they actually think of me as their daughter, and not just legally. Or...maybe the fear I feel now will one day dissipate and truly depart, and I won't be so afraid of everything anymore (_a shadow on the wall - a bird, a crow, ripping into my heart? a monster, lurking? who's there?)._

* * *

Sometimes my younger Dad (_quick aside: he's the reason why I got into 80's music in the first place!_), will come to my bedside with hot tea and stroke my bangs out of my eyes, and just sorta hum the tune to that famous Cyndi Lauper song._ True Colours_?

One night, he just spoke the words to me. Told me I didn't have to talk, I just had to listen.

'"Hey...you with the sad eyes..._I see your true colors, and that's why I love you."'_

I tried to listen.

But sometimes it's harder to hear, than to listen.

* * *

Eventually my younger Dad stopped singing me horribly cheese-ball songs. Songs, instead, got replaced with bribery of food; apparently neither of my dads think I "eat enough", which is complete balony. Because I eat exactly _enough_ to satisfy my appetite. Which, granted, is probably on the scanty side. Especially lately. But the alternative is to eat, and get sick. Like in the beginning.

Like...Right After.

So I have this whole plan now. It goes something like this: if I don't feel totally shaky and awful... sometimes I'll nibble on a cookie. Usually gingersnaps, because they're my favorite. And only **_sometimes; _**only when I'm pretty sure I won't void it a minute later.

* * *

_After it happened..._

I was frozen.

And then, over the next 12 hours at the Adolescent Medical Intake clinic, I just sort of...thawed. No more ice and no more numbness. Just the sounds and the images. _The night, the time, the pain, and me on my back staring at the night sky. Hearing a crow caw. Distantly aware of a bon fire burning several hundred yards away. The party. _

_{no one helping}_

And then of course, when the fear grasped me, and I just. **lay. there **- and everything became very, very cold and slow and very blue. Like someone had adjusted the rods and cones in my eyes to only allow a blue tinted reality to pass through. Nothing else. No other colours. Blue, and the spectrum of blacks maybe. Greys.

The doctors say it must have been profound shock. They said that shock can do weird things to the mind.

Things we don't expect.

* * *

There was this one nurse - Pippa - who got me to calm down enough to stop crying. Just enough (_which was hard for me to do, feeling all exposed in that horrible white gown with the ties that never stay closed_), and she handed me her cardigan while we waited for the doctor.

I remember being... icy cold. The type of cold that takes up permanent residence in your core, and refuses to let anything or anyone else warm you up. Not warm drinks, or your parents, or a cardigan or _anything._ And the most random thing -_ the one thing that just stands out as not fitting with anything else that night _- was when she asked if I liked gingerbread cookies, because _'"the cafeteria has some, and since it might be awhile longer, Francesca...I could get you one? What do you say, honey?"'_

I don't think I responded.

At least not verbally.

But I can't remember one way or the other.

* * *

Pippa came back not ten minutes later with, indeed, the biggest monster of a gingersnap cookie I had _ever_ seen (and the most concealing blanket, too).

And I remember being so stone-cold still, as if...by being still, I could somehow fade away from view. So I fixed my gaze on my feet (_bundled in my older Dad's thick grey wool socks, dangling off my stupid tiny *pointless* feet that hadn't run fast enough or carried me far enough or kicked hard enough or done ENOUGH_). Just fixated my gaze on my those bloodless feet and that fucking... cookie. That cookie that had been placed on the examining table where I was stiffly propped up, with my spine rigid. Feeling... brittle, cold, stiff, _dead._

Just like my little wooden doll.

And then the doctor came, and everything got _worse. _But I focused on that monster gingerbread cookie, and doing that one thing...helped. To have this random, completely out-of-place object to look at, when all I felt was either all too numb or all too MUCH. And don't ask me how you can feel TOO much and nothing at ALL, at the same time.

**_I _**can't even make sense of that one.

* * *

My dads keep asking me to talk about it.

I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it at all.

_But, if I ever did, well... _

All I **really** need to say, is this: _There is no way Francesca survived that night. __I should know. __I was there. __I saw her bleed._

**_

* * *

_**

* * *

sometime later, the rain stops falling~

~~~~~or, more precisely: i stop hearing the rain fall~~~~~

~~~~~~~sleep is my friend~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~it feels good to fall under the waves of sleep~~~~~~~~~

_~~~~~~~~~~~under the warm, distancing ocean~~~~~~~~~~~_

_~~~~~~~~~~~~~and the water fills my head, my ears, my consciousness - and suddenly I can't hear much at all.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_

_/_

_/_

_/_

_/_

_/_

_no._

_please._

_no! no, please i don't...i don't want...! Please! PLEASE NO!_

_DAD!_

* * *

**I can't breathe! I can't breathe! NO! NO GET OFF! Oh please i need to_ breathe! dad help me!_**

* * *

"FRANKY!"

I must have been crying in my sleep.

**_try to stop crying!_**

**_why are you crying?_**

**{stop it!}**

**_it was worse then_**

**_so much worse_**

**_and you didn't cry at all when it happened_**

**_you barely cried all the way home_**

**_only when you locked the door to the bathroom_**

_{"we don't lock doors in this family!" but i had too; i couldn't just let them **see**}_

_hiccoughing crying, and then vomiting._

_bright red too. __not blood. __ketchup. from the party. ketchup. part of a hot dog. it almost choked you, coming up your esophagus._

**Do you remember? The pain in your throat? The undigested hotdog? **

**And something else, the taste...do you remember?**

_something bitter, old. soft drink. barely any fizz left. dash of rum, something else._

_vomit coming up on its own. _

_bending down when HE staggered off, after HE was done, and waiting...waiting..._

_and then vomiting between my legs._

_vomiting instead of screaming._

_blood and puke. out, out, out. get out of my stomach. get out._

**And when I got home, I used the shower hose, and pushed it away - down and away - with the water. **

_wetting my clothes - my tank top_

_my striped underpants. _

_white and red pinstripe underpants_

_candy cane underpants_

_now soaked in maroon. blood from _there__

_and my dads, too: "we don't lock doors, FRANCESCA!"..._

_and they opened the door._

_with the ice pick, (pop, and turn) and came in._

_and geoff grabbed the hose, turned off the water._

_the sound of no's _

_not my own_

_a litany of **NO's! **fell from his mouth first, because he was closest._

_and I had this urge to *laugh*_

**Because all I could remember thinking, in that bathtub was : **_"I screamed, I SCREAMED, and I was louder than you. So much louder! And it still happened!"__

* * *

_

Sometimes - like on nights when it rains - I'm screwed.

I know that my mind will become this freakish merry-go-round of horrible sights and sounds. And I can't get off.

* * *

_i'm in a bathtub. a bathtub without water. in my clothes._

_blood is streaming down from my interior and coating my thighs._

_it burns deeply between my legs, but my hands feel numb. my feet too._

_and i think i'm crying now, but i can't really feel myself crying. _

_but i must be._

_i'm making noise._

_{'shut up. they'll hear! SHUT UP!'}_

_i'm not understanding this. blood. it doesn't make sense. not this week._

_and it's too much. it's too bright. _

_one of my dad's is pounding on the door. _

_'**"Franky! Why are you crying, love?"' **_

_{'quiet. you should have stayed quiet.'}_

_"Franky... please open up!"_

_{'don't say a word. don't let them see. you can't. you can't. not this'}_

_**"Oh God!"**_

_geoff is crying, racing towards the tub._

_he's in._

_**"Nono... Franky- oh God! Jeff! There's...oh god, who DID this? Who did this to you?"**_

_/them. them./_

_shakesoftly. soft. soft. softly like a rocking motion. _

_my Dad is *shaking* me.__ softly. like he's afraid I'll shatter apart in front of his eyes._

_**"Who DID THIS TO YOU?"**_

_**he sounds so angry.**_

_my younger Dad touches my right shoulder this time, and I let out a howl._

_**"It hurts!,"**I gasp when he reaches for me again, trying to get me to respond._

_"I know, sweetheart, I-"_

_{'don't touch. please don't touch'}_

_pain and purple flashings interrupt my enforced soundlessness._

_i am going to pass out from this pain._

_**"My arm hurts!," **I bite out tearfully._

_dad lowers himself to my line of sight, and tilts my face towards him._

_i want his eyes to come up. up and away from that collected pool of red._

_to see anything other than...**that. **_

_absolutely mortified. __{So ashamed. So fucking ashamed.}_

_and then the bathroom light is on, and my older Dad SEES, too:_

_**"STOP IT Geoff...her shoulder! **God damn fuckers**...they dislocated her shoulder!"**_

_{'no. i'm okay. i'm okay. i just fell. just tell them you fell.'}_

When I tried to talk - it didn't make much sense. Not even to me.

_My teeth are chattering from cold and pain and something else. Shock maybe. Crazy-twisted shock. And I can only watch the blood continue to seep through my underwear - through those rotten *girly* panties that don't hide _anything_. _

_**"I'm gonna get you outta that tub now, okay, love?, "** Geoff prompts cautiously, coming around my side before hooking his hands beneath my legs to raise me up._

I winced and turned away, because I didn't want Geoff to have to wash my blood off later. I didn't want him to see my blood, and know where it came from, and how it came to be all over his lap in the first place.

_**"We gotta get you to the hospital, Franky."**_

_I try to push Geoff's hand away {'please go away! please!'} and he slowly lowers me back down to the porcelain._

_i don't know why. i might have screamed._

_i think i scared him._

_**"I j-j-jusstust...f-fell. That's all," **I bite out against his chest._

_i feel the whooshing of silk fabric against my chest. A hug..._

_somehow the sensation makes everything feel so staggering real. __i don't know why. i__ think it's because the silk is so soft. and dry. __and smells like the old spice that dad uses._

_the smell makes me want to bawl._

_**"I ne-need a bath. I think I came to get...cleaned up, but I don't know what to do... You guys were watching a movie so I d-didn't want to disturb y-you."**_

_my head hurts, like someone smashed it into a rock. _

_**"I need to get cleaned up. I'm all messy."**_

_i am going to pass out. i am__ a paper doll. weightless. limp._

_Geoff: **"Call the health links line! Tell them what happened, and tell them she...she's in shock. Find out if we take her to emergency, or somewhere more appropriate...-"**_

Dad ran like a sprinter. Even though he's 54, and has a busted knee. He ran...like there was nothing more important in the world than _me_. As if I was...priceless. But really, I'm not invaluable. I have no value. I'm not priceless.

_**"Worthless," **I breathe out._

_If Geoff hears - he doesn't say anything. __He just takes my scrapped up hands - coated in dried mud and blood - a__nd kisses them._

**_

* * *

_**

"Franky!"

I turn away from Geoff, so he knows that I'm awake. I try not to breathe very loudly; my nose is all plugged up with snot, though, so that's actually very hard to do.

I can't look him in the eyes.

"Franky...you have no reason...," Geoff trails off.

My bed feels wet. The burning turns to ice cold claws digging into my heart. Going straight to my bowels. I feel the heat of his hand hover over me. Wanting to touch my head, maybe my back. _Pat. Slight pat. _To let me know he's _here_.

Dad then, still rooted in the hallway: "Should I call the doctor?," he chokes out from the blackened steps leading to my top floor bedroom.

"No, no - she's awake now - aren't you Franky?," Geoff says, his voice hovering between whisper and mute. "Awake, and safe. Safe now. _Safe_."

I scrunch up into a ball. Pull away from Geoff as I recall** the. hospital, **and his hovering hand that wants to stroke my hair. Stroke my hair like I'm a little kid whose dog has died. _Pat, pat_. Nothing more than a pat. And he's scared to do even that. _How fucked up is that?_

"Please talk to us, honey."

I push away hot, fat tears. _I'm such a baby. __Big waste-of-space baby. _I want to be cool about this. I squeeze down on my eyes and push with deliberate force until I see sparks of green-white light.

_**'go. away.'**_

I don't want to see these things in my head.

"No, no - none of that!," Dad reprimands, gently, prying my cold hands away from my face. "We are in this together, love. No running away anymore..."

I'm struggling to make sense of something. His words.

"What are you seeing?"

flash back. back. flash. _{Dirty little freak of a daughter.}_

"I'm cold...," I trail into Dad's chest, my face down-turned. He smells like... filo pastry mix. I like the scent, and take a deep breath.

If I can smell pastry...then I'm here, and not there.

Pastry means __here__.

"You're scaring the hell out of us, Francesca."

I feel a warmth at the small of my back. Small, clockwise circles.

"I don't needa doctor. I'm fine."

It comes out like_fhrrn. _Muffled.

"You call _THIS_ fine, kiddo?"

I exhale with great force. Out of need. My lungs are swollen with something. Something awful. The awful-something in my lungs needs to come out more than the oxygen needs to come inside. If I could get the bad out... I'd be okay.

"Franky. We** are **dealing with this. Tonight. No more denial. No more pretending...," Dad says, his voice stiffer and stronger than is normal for one of my nightmare-freak-scream sessions. Not that I _blame_ him for putting his foot down, exactly. I wouldn't want to be woken up by my freak daughter for the fourth time in as many weeks, either.

"I don't need to see anyone... There's nothing wrong with me!"

Geoff sits down fully - but keeps half a foot between his calve and my waist, sprawled out beneath my striped blue blanket.

"Nothing wrong?," Geoff queries, now. "You don't really _believe_ that, do you?"

I punch the pillow with my hands. My bones feel sore, deep inside.

"Nothing's wrong with *me*, Geoff!," I howl-hiss-say. Firm.

I just need to be firm.

"This'll...this'll _go away_! I just...I need time. I can't *help* the dreams, or...I can't help _this, but-_"

Dad - too fast, rebounding: "_Nothing_ is going away if you keep avoiding it, Franky."

And then, adrenaline. Hot, acrid,_ wonderful _adrenaline. I'm suddenly up in my bed. My bed on the floor. My makeshift Japanese floor-bed.

"I don't WANT to talk about it! I'm not a homosexual, and I'm not confused about my...," _breathe, remember to breathe,_ "I just don't feel comfortable being like...others...when they look...they _KNOW_...cause..."

_'please stop'_

"You know what? This is shit! I'm not **_queer_**, Geoff!"

Geoff cringes.

"_They _didn't make me queer, and I don't need to talk to anyone about anything!"

I'm rambling. Faster and faster. My voice sounds so high pitched and strained and frantic. A girls voice. A girl who would scream and scream and beg and then cry, even when she was bleeding. _I hate that girl._

"It's okay, it's okay...we won't talk about this tonight anymore."

I punch my pillow, fuelled mostly by rage - then swipe at Geoff whose trying to inch closer and closer, and then kick my legs back and forth forcing the covers off in one fell swoop. Up, up - I'm up and then I'm at my work table, and my hand is crashing down on the buildings, the intricate little cardboard cutouts, my paper bird, and-

"I don't need help! I need _time!_ Time to...break all of it down in my mind! Break it down and put it back together so it makes SENSE!"

"You think this could make sense? You're our daughter. Our **daughter**. In the truest sense of the word. You're our..._child, Francesca_..."

Geoff is holding back my arm - not painfully - and then I'm turned and pressed, and like an envelope... stamp-hugged into him, held there. But it's a good stamping.

It doesn't _hurt._


	2. Chapter 2

**Title - After the Apocalypse - Part 2**

**Author - Kourion **

**Summary: "**But I can't cry. Because I'm in a shrinks office - and the shrink just happens to think I'm homosexual. To cry would just...confirm that suspicion, now wouldn't it?" Franky centric/ noncon warning.

**A/N: **Please note: this story is written in a very, very atypical format. Experimental, you could call it. It may not be your cup of tea for that reason, or - more likely, due to violence and noncon situations detailed within. Proceed with caution.

* * *

"One need not be a chamber to be haunted." _-Emily Dickinson_

* * *

**f r a n k y ' s P O V**

* * *

Life in Bristol was supposed to be this whole...new start.

New start. New me.

New _effort, Franky, _said the dads. I had to make an effort. Things like this don't just go fixing _themselves_.

Unfortunately... part of the deal was that if I didn't talk to my dads, I had to talk to "someone." I almost told them to fuck off, too. Right then and there. To just fuck off, and to let all that shit dwindle down and die; that fire, inside. Except I don't think it ever goes out. That fire.

It continually burns.

And not even my _adventures of wooden man!_ series is helping me focus these days.

* * *

Besides, I know better. Or I _should_ know better.

But _shoulds_ and _feelings _don't ever go hand-in-hand. You can't always help how you feel.

Even if I _should know _that it's not safe for me. I don't develop...these sort of feelings. Not for anyone. Especially not for a guy. Because I'm not an idiot: I know what that means. With guys. And it's not like I have feelings for girls, or something, either. Cause I don't. I'm not supposed to have feelings for anyone. So I don't.

Not even for myself.

No feelings.

nofeelings.

It's safer that way.

* * *

"They were having sex."

It's not a question. It's never a question when _Madeline_ talks to me about, well, anything.

It should be. I mean, I'm the patient. And she's a shrink, not a mind reader.

Or so she says.

She does seem to do a fantastically grand job at mind reading, though.

* * *

My doctors name is Madeline Cahill.

Apparently, my dads think I should be talking to a woman doctor (and that the problem before was they kept giving me _men_ doctors. Because, gosh darnit!, I'd be totally fixed by now if they had given me a lady doctor instead!)

**_Suuure._**

_As if... every fucking thing in my life was not already screwed to hell long before that night..._

"Franky?"

I don't mind Madeline.

Not really. Not as far as shrinks goes. I mean, she doesn't insist on the whole _**Francesca Alice**_...thing. Not usually. Not in most of our interactions. Because she knows I don't feel like that anymore. Not like that girl. (Not like a girl, you mean?)

{_like a victim. nomore. no more said the**rapist**. the rapist_}

Of course, that's what we are supposed to (quote unquote) "work on." My issues with...being a girl. If I feel as if I am a girl. Or if I just wish I DIDN'T feel like I was a girl. Or if I'm just trying to hide the fact that I _am_ a girl.

I can taste blood.

"Hands at your sides, please, Franky."

I hear Madeline sigh, and suddenly realize that one of my fingers has found its way into my mouth, again. And that before I could help myself, my teeth were attacking my pinky.

My pinky finger feels warm and inflamed.

I self-injure, says the doctor.

Even the picking and the tugging and the gnawing on my hands counts.

Of course, I think that's bollocks.

It's just a nervous habit. And who wouldn't be nervous, given everything that happened?

"M'sorry," I add, resignedly - waving away my hand, and blotting the blood against my black woolen trousers._ Men's _trousers, rolled up 8 inches to adjust to my 5 ft 1 frame.

"Alright. Do you want some water?"

My chest hurts. If you were to shot-put me with a metallic weight - right into my core - it would feel like this.

I know it would.

* * *

I take the water proffered in the little dixie cup greedily. When I've drained the small container, I fiddle with the paper curled edge of the floral print paper, and slowly start to peel the paper apart. If you do it just _so_, you can take the flowers right off and leave a white, pure shell of a cup in its place.

"Did you want to talk about Mini instead, today?"

**No.**

_No._

**_I really don't._**

I force myself to swallow.

"Why do you ask questions that you already _know_ the answers to, Madeline? I'm not...I...don't _like_ Mini, as...as in..."

"Sexually?"

I should have worn my blazer. My blazer and my flannel red top. It's freezing in this office. And I'm stuck in a navy blue tank top, and then nothing on my forearms. Just bangles and a denim vest that leaves my arms bare. Goosebumps race up my arms in the next second, and I find myself rubbing my limbs, frantically. I force myself to stop the motion.

I feel so exposed.

"**No."**

**I should have worn my blazer.**

"Okay. I'll buy that. I do. But the boy. Matty? That sounds like a crush, you know it does. And yet, you want to argue that it's...not? Is that right?"

_Why do I always have to be so cold?_

"I wasn't...jealous, of her...Liv. No, it's not..._**no**_..."

"No?"

Madeline is just doing her _i'm-a-patient-and-consoling-soothing shrink _routine. I'll ramble and ramble and she'll come up with some garbage about repression or denial; I stare at my brothel creeper shoes. I count the black lace cords winding through into the white material. Back and forth, under and over, here and there and now and then, and gone. And gone.

_Gone._

_What does it mean to be real?_

_What does it mean to be gone?_

_And if you can make something seem like it never happened...well, then...did it?_

When I glance at the clock next, I'm dismayed to see that barely a quarter of my session has passed.

* * *

"I'm not gay."

"I never said you were..."

"Mini, though - you say, _like every fucking session...you say_...you _**imply**_..."

"What do I imply, Franky?"

"That I - that I'm... I...I don't know. I don't really know! Or maybe I just don't want to know, because it's sick and-"

"Wait a second. This doesn't sound like you, and I think you know it; your _dads_ are gay. Do you really want to state... that your position on homosexuality is that it's...a perversion?"

I suddenly want to cry.

Like _really_ badly.

Like I'm back in Oxford, in that bloody fucking bathtub.

And this is so not right. It's not...accurate. It's so unfair.

Unfair.

But I can't cry. Because I'm in a shrinks office - and the shrink just happens to think I'm homosexual. To cry would just...confirm that suspicion, now wouldn't it?"

Crying would be like this admission of _guilt_.

_guilty. guilty. guilty._ youcouldhavebit and foughtmore

_**why didn't i fight more?**_

"Okay, Franky..."

But it's NOT okay.

"I'm _not._ I'm not! I don't...I don't care about...when others... _If they are like** that**._ But I'm not. I've never *been* like that. I'm not lying!"

It comes out in a rush, and I choke a little on the ending. My assertion is far from impressive.

"I don't...like girls like that, Madeline. I never have."

My eyes feel wet, but stupid little baby-me tried to show..."growth", and risk taking, and stretching out of "comfort zones" and stuff...

I was an idiot to choose a bloody_ girls tank top _instead of my typical apparel. Never again. With long sleeves I could have...been covered.

Been safe.

"_Ok. _It's okay. You maintain you don't feel like that about girls, and I believe you..."

"I _don't_... about...**anyone, though**. Not...not like you mean. I never have and I never will. I just never will, alright?"

Oh yes. Oh yes _indeed_ - my shoes are amazingly fascinating. _Three freaking cheers to Franky Alice Fitzgerald for getting the fuckingest and most awesome shoes in existence!_

_With these shoes, I look like a little ventriloquist doll..._

"_'Not...about anyone'_. Can you tell me how that works?"

I really don't know why my dads have to pay $200 a week for this woman to just paraphrase whatever I say. I mean, how is that therapy? How does that count as therapeutic?

"Why...why do_ all _of your questions have to do with_ that_?"

"With sex, you mean?"

I find myself moodily nodding at the fish -tank. Nodding at the small school of neon pink tetras.

I find myself blinking back traitorous tears, _because oh, sure, little girl...you are just soooo normal with this subject, aren't you?_

"Franky...you've got to understand. This fear, to this degree. These are not...normal responses for someone who is completely...healthy with the subject. Given your history, it's more than underst-"

I run my hands through my hair to get rid of the sweat. How can I be so cold and still be sweating at the same time?

_not Normal. not Normal. abNormal. abnormal._

_Freak. you'resuchanuglydyke._

"But it's NOT something that...I want to talk about. I don't...want to really discuss it, you know. I mean, I don't think it's the problem here anyway..._I wasn't _jealous of Liv. With Matty. Like that. I didn't...I don't want that. Not ever. And I can't...I know if they knew, my dads, they'd just think..._it's because of Oxford and the party and everything_... But it's not."

I feel trapped. I told them. I told both my dads that I don't need to be fixed.

"Yet you stayed. You didn't leave immediately. You stayed and watched two people doing something rather intimate."

"I didn't...mean to..._see_. I just...needed to use the bathroom, and it was upstairs. And then when I _did see_, it's like...I couldn't...not...watch. Not cause I wanted to see it; I...when I saw them, and what they were doing...," **_remembertobreathe_**, "...I couldn't make myself move. Leave. I didn't...like seeing him like that. But not because he was with her; it's more...because he was doing it at all."

**_don'tcry._**

**_don't cry._**

"And you...felt rooted to the spot, but not out of...curiosity? Were you frozen?"

I pull my feet up to my chin. I need to feel something against my chest. I need to feel something blocking all this crushing air.

There's too much air in here, and I still can't breathe.

"You look like...you want to say something, Franky."

**_don'tsayit. don't tell her. don't._**

"Holding back won't get us anywhere. You know that."

I feel something sour coil in my gut. Fear and anger and rage and something so confusing, and big - so massively big - I don't even want to start trying to identify it at all. I don't want to know what the feeling is. I just want it to go away.

So I stare at the fish-tank, instead of Dr. Madeline Cahill.

"How about if you tell me that one scary thought, Franky...the one thought that worries you most right now, and then we'll move onto something else for today... Deal?"

_let'smakeadeal?_

_I'm five YEARS old and eating corn flakes at the children's home. Watching Monty on LETS MAKE A DEAL!_

"I felt...almost like...cold and frozen and just...there. And I liked him. And in my head I thought...he was safe, cause he didn't seem like the other guys, but he **is**, and then...with Liv, I couldn't help think that..."

**_shutup_**

"I couldn't breathe. Not then, and not at Alo's party when...I saw them. And it just...felt like...his hands, on me. As I watched. That's what it felt like. Like - his hands on my throat, and around my arms and everywhere, and that just...that doesn't make any sense. How can that make sense?"

_shutup**now**_

My throat feels like its closing up. Just like it did on that night - during Alo's party, on the staircase, in the dark - watching. And all I could do was clutch at my throat, and try to get rid of the sensation of hands and fingers and _force. _Force and pain and the confusion. Liking Matty. Hating sex. _Hating how heavy they were and how I couldn't get up and how they didn't stop even when I screamed._

_And then my voice was gone. Like in a nightmare. And you try and try to scream, and you can't. You can't scream, or move, and when that happens, all you can do is stay very, very still and just go somewhere else in your mind because you certainly don't want to stay in your body, in the cold, and the dark, with..._

And then Madeline is sitting a couple feet from me, and is holding my hand, and it just feels really surreal. That she could be so warm in such a cold office.

"That's me, and that's you...here, Francesca."

Jeff's obviously been talking to her.

"Now. Right now."

And the whole room feels like it's swimming. I feel as if I'm actually trapped in the goddamned aquarium with the fucking tetra fish.

Everything is really blurry.

I just wish I knew if it was due to the fact that I'm trying not to cry.

Or if I'm just losing my mind.

* * *

When I get home, I don't talk to my dads.

I just hightail it to my bedroom and push my work station table across the door to keep everyone else out, and then toss my fall coat over my mirror. So I don't have to look at my face.

Or look into my eyes.

Realize I don't know those eyes anymore. Or worse - realize that I DO, and I don't want to know _myself_ anymore. Except that I don't know how to be anyone but myself. I don't know how to even feel moderately safe without my stupid androgynous _little boy body _that I made and love and hate... all at once. That I _turned_ boyish because that was so much safer, in the long run._

* * *

_

Even with the ciggie lighter pressed against my chest, I hate myself.

I need it, but I hate it. I let the flame lap at my left breast until the skin starts to blister and I want to scream. But the pain from fire is manageable. And, besides, I don't like my breasts anyway.

When I'm done, I put some polysporn on the skin, and then wrap my chest with gauze, a sports bra, my wife-beater, and my flannel shirt.

I have to be careful.

My dads - after all - saw my arms, and all hell broke loose. Jeff cried, even! And I just felt so awful.

But I also knew then and there that it helped. It did.

The pain from fire sticks with me, and just drowns out everything else. Every other horrible black feeling that makes me feel weak and needy and vulnerable. Those feelings just vanish...

The pain helps. It does. It does when you can administer it yourself. Because you know exactly what is coming, and when, and where. And you know all the awful things you felt before are going to fall so far back that you won't be able to feel them at all, really.

So, sure, I promised my dads that I wouldn't hurt or burn my arms again. I didn't break my promise.

_They should have been more specific..._

Because they'll never see this part of me, anyway. And I know it sounds like just one more freak thing that I do, but honestly - right now, lying on my back, with the room lights turned off while listening to Stevie Nicks and actually NOT hyperventilating...well, I'm _okay._

I hurt, sure.

But I always hurt.

And at least right now, I can breathe again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title - After the Apocalypse - Part 3**

**Author - Kourion **

**Summary: "I don't recall feeling this nervous when I found Grace hanging out in my room, unannounced. But this feels different. More...nerve-wracking somehow. My eyes rapidly dart around looking for...anything out of place. Anything weird. Anything *weirder*." **Franky centric/ noncon warning.

**A/N: **Please note: this story is written in a very, very atypical format. Experimental, you could call it. It may not be your cup of tea for that reason, or - more likely, due to violence and noncon situations detailed within. Proceed with caution.

* * *

_"You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you." - Mary Tyler Moore_

* * *

**f r a n k y ' s P O V**

* * *

Geoff looks pissed.

Like, ready to blow-a-gasket-pissed.

I feel Mini's arm wrap around mine, as if to offer support. Physical or emotional, I don't know - although my knees feel like jelly.

"Where have you _BEEN,_ Francesca?," he begins, crossing the path from door to mailbox in under three seconds flat, his hands digging into my upper arms with more ferocity than intended, I suspect.

"I'm sorry about this, Geoff!," Mini rushes in exclamation, coming to my defense. A little...too forcefully. A little too _fearfully._

It's not like my dads are abusive, or anything.

Geoff looks to my arm then, and to where I'm gingerly rubbing the skin, before he releases his hold on me. Instead, his eyes travel over my body, and after a moment I can feel him suck in a breathe.

"What in God's name _happened_ to you, Franky?," and his eyes are boring holes into my own. I can feel the sense of shame descend...like a hawk coming in for the kill.

All afternoon, I tried to keep it at bay. That feeling that I was going to _lose my mind_. That feeling...that I must just...go and do *it* to get rid of the fear. It being sex. With Matty. Just do_ it _and get it _over with _and blot out the _big bad with little bad_. With the Baby bad of IT.

And really, it would have been with Matty, anyway. It wasn't as if he was going to hurt me.

_But he did. _

_In a sense. _

_Unknowingly. _

_Or maybe, to be fair...I hurt myself. _

_I mean, I kissed him first. _

_I unzipped his god damn pants and more or less just told him to...do what he wanted._

_But I just couldn't take it. _

_I couldn't make my heart slow down. I couldn't...make it mean nothing. _

_It could never mean nothing, shouldn't ever mean nothing. Especially given all the before stuff. _

Mini, it seems, has turned quiet. I can sense that she's trying to physically put herself between me and my dad.

"It's...not her fault. None of what happened was her fault," and she turns to me, looking as if she wants to hug (_kiss?) _- hug me, before she says, even more softly, "none of it. Ok?"

But her eyes linger on mine just a second too long, and Geoff seems to go on high alert then. Reading more into the glances and his scruffed up daughter. Reading more into Mini and her protectiveness than he should, maybe.

Because he's not angry any more.

He's..._upset._

And he becomes increasingly so as he eyes my feet, my legs.

Because while I scrapped the mud off my thighs earlier on (and blotted up the blood from the scratches on my shins after Liv helped me up from the cliff), my shins are stills scabbed over with cuts from the fall.

Geoff eyes me dismally, his voice sounding...full of forced calm.

"What happened, Franky?"

And I know what he's thinking. He's thinking...that _the last time my daughter went away for an entire day, and half of the night, she came back wounded and bloody and...damaged_.

_She came back silent and cold and...bleeding._

And here I am, again. Bleeding again. Not in the same way, of course. And not for the same reasons, thank god.

But he doesn't know that yet. He doesn't know _anything_ yet. Just that my legs are scrapped up and bruised, and that my skirt is ripped.

I mean, he must be going through a certain kind of dad-terror right now.

_**Can't he figure it out? Can't he understand how this makes me feel?**_

_**How exposed this makes me feel?**_

He pulls back just enough to try to make eye contact with his screw-up of a daughter when I don't respond.

Instead, I look down at my shoes.

The fanciest, girliest things that I had on hand... to go to the wedding-that-wasn't-to-be. I mean, I can sew just about anything that I need out of my surplus of materials and fabrics...except for shoes. And between the bridesmaid outfits and the wedding dress itself, my disposable income has been pushed to the max-out stage, lately. Never mind the fact that said shoes are in really crap condition now, as well...all scuffed up and muddy.

"God, please tell me no one has hurt you. Tell me nothing happened...," and he's whispering, but that's not _**GOOD ENOUGH.**_

I mean, this is beyond embarrassing. After all, Mini is standing not even two feet away. Right there on the blasted walk, her eyes wide and watchful. I have no doubt that she's getting this all.

"No one has touched you?," Geoff presses, with an insistence that in_ itself _I find shameful! And fuck it, why did he have to be _waiting for me? Waiting for me on the god damned porch, at midnight?_

My throat won't work. My throat won't work properly at all. I try to say, I try to fucking *tell him* that _I'm **ok**, that **nothing HAPPENED, I'M FINE**_, but my dad's basically stroking my hair and pulling me towards him as if he's on auto-pilot. As if I'm a rare jewel. A family heirloom. Something he lost for years and years and missed so much that he's in disbelief...

"Franky?," and the voice holds a note of something so torn and needy, that guilt descends upon me like a storm cloud.

Because a good daughter would have _called._

"N-no...," I get out, shakily, just begging internally for Geoff to be quiet. To be fucking quiet. To not say anything _**more**._ To not say anything else which Mini, without question, will hear. Hear and piece together like a kiddie's jigsaw puzzle of a mere 12 pieces.

_'If she hasn't already...'_

Because I know that she already suspects the worst. I saw it in her gaze earlier on, studying me without scorn. More than that, **I felt it in her touch**, in the way her arms came lightly around mine, and settled up to tuck the raggedy yellow jacket around me like a shield.

_"'Franky...did he hurt you?'| _

And what could I say, really, to that?

_"'I just wanted to feel normal...'"_

**No, Mini. Matty didn't do shit. I'm just a freak with major issues...**

Because I wasn't exactly calm when Liv and Matty, and Mini, found me. I was trying too hard not to vomit, not to scream.

I was trying, of course, not to cry. But I failed at that, I think.

And - what's more - I think everyone knew that it wasn't _JUST because I had almost catapulted myself off a cliff, to my death._

"Can we talk about this later?," I beg Geoff, who releases me slightly, but not entirely.

"Yes._ **We will**...," _but he holds me back before I can escape, or before Mini can depart.

"Where do you live, Mini?," he asks more clearly now, more assuredly, more...parental in tone. I mean, I guess he's figured out that _something_ has happened...but nothing as bad as what I've been through before.

In short: he's concerned, but he's not panicked.

"Mmm?," Mini asks evasively, wrapping a long tendril of blond hair around her finger.

She suddenly looks about 13.

"Your mum and dad know where you are?," Geoff queries, not unkindly, and with far less firmness and reproach than was flung my way.

Which makes sense. Mini's not _his_ kid.

_('You're not his kid, either, bitch. You're nobody's kid. You're just a frea-')_

"I left Mr. Machismo a voice mail...message. If he gives it to Ms. Dihydramine - I'll be surprised," Mini starts up, almost amused with herself, her voice only trailing off when she catches the firmness in my dad's eyes. I see him check his watch, tap the digital LED display, and watch as the Casio glows a pale periwinkle.

"Okay, well, give them a quick buzz while I grab the car, and I'll give you a lift..."

Mini looks...shifty. There is no other word to describe the expression now forming on her face.

"Mini?," I question, my voice coming out as little more than a warm puff of air.

"They are...not there. And I don't have keys," she confesses, barely loudly enough for Geoff to hear. But he does hear, and he looks up sharply, his eyes becoming more serious, less get-out-of-jail-free, now.

No, his eyes have definitely taken on a**_ do-not-pass-go, do-not-collect-$200 _**look.

"Where are they?"

Mini tugs at her white-blond hair, almost dismissively. "I don't know. Brighton, maybe? They won't be home until Monday."

_Monday. Monday?_

"What were you planning on _doing_, kiddo? Scour the streets by yourself at this hour? Do you know how dangerous that is?"

Mini doesn't look chastised, as I know I would. But she looks...somewhat more reserved.

"The college opens at 6," she says with only modest hesitation. "Drama practice for the enrichment programs and all that...," here voice disappears.

"You can't just wander around until 6 am, Mini!," I sputter, my tongue going now on its own. "You could get hurt! I mean, someone... you never think it will happen to you, but it-"

_**I can't believe I just said that. **_

Geoff exhales forcibly, then indicates that he's returning indoors, and that we are both to follow.

Mini gives me a cautious glance, as if asking _'is this alright?'_

But how can I say no? I mean, I can't. I just can't let her leave and wander around Bristol at this time of night, regardless of how antsy I feel. I can't let her go off on her own.

* * *

"We're finishing up **Cosmos**, which will run at least another hour, but please try to be silent after that, yeah girls?," Geoff addresses us, mutually, as I navigate Mini towards the hall closet, and show her wear she can toss her shoes.

"Might as well bloody talk to myself," I hear my dad mumble to no one in particular a few moments later, before I look up and give him a brief smile to let him know that_ I've _heard.

"Yes, DAD," I stress, before giving him a fast smile. "We'll be little angels."

He snorts, before his look of amusement clears into something more...cautious.

"Oh, Franky - I'm not telling you how to live your life, but you might want to cut the girl-talk short tonight. Appointment at noon, kiddo," he says lightly, almost...

**_apologetically?_**

I hop up on my stool as I consider his words, confused.

I know I don't have anything scheduled for tomorrow.

"Pineapple?," my dad tests as I run through my mental to-do list.

I shake my head and reach for an old Rupert Bear mug, that I quickly top up with Pepsi Max. The mug was a gift that Mr. Lehr gave to me when I was eight. It's the only thing that I've ever kept from all the homes that I lived in as a kid. It's the only thing that I _wanted_ to keep. Mr. Lehr was actually a pretty nice guy. He reminded me of a younger Santa Claus back then. Without the beard.

He also died of a cerebral aneurysm a month before my 9th birthday.

Life sometimes sucks beyond belief.

"Appntmnt?," I talk through sips of Pepsi, while Mini sort of awkwardly deposits herself at the glass table.

I'm suddenly very, very thirsty, and figure Mini must be, too, so I chuck a green plastic cup and slide the bottle of cola over to her. She stares at the cup and the bottle as if she can't comprehend what she's supposed to do with either.

"What appointment?," I test again a couple moments later, when my dad doesn't answer. I find myself suddenly running my tongue over my teeth, feeling the indention of braces.

I don't go back to the dentist for another three weeks, minimally. I KNOW this.

What's worse...I see Geoff hedge, so I put down the mug cautiously, not liking his sudden quietude.

"You bailed today, Franky. So Madeline rescheduled. That's what we adults like to call a _repercussion_, princess," Geoff says briskly as he pours himself a glass of pineapple juice from the fridge, and tosses in a couple mock ice-cube submarines.

No.

"No way. No. I'm not going in on a Saturday, Dad! I never do. I-I'm...just not going! This is crap!"

I never go on a Saturday.

"That may be the case, love. But it's a done deal..."

"I don't even need to go. This is just screwed up. I-"

"Whine all you want, Francesca. You know the drill. Unless you'd like to actually...argue about this. Right now?," my dad states, glancing quickly at Mini whose trying to make herself look very shrunken and busy while she reads the label on the Pepsi Max bottle.

But I know when I've lost the battle, and angrily rise from the table, suddenly high on anger and aggression and _something else._

Something that feels very much like reaching my limit...of crappy unfairness.

* * *

By the time I hear the tentative knock at my door, my mood is already somewhat...restored to company-decent. It's not 100% of course, but it has improved.

"Yeah?," I test resignedly, not wanting to push my dad any further, just in case it is him.

I mean, he could have grounded me or something._ Something_. He didn't even yell.

And I do feel sort of badly about not calling.

_I do._

The knock raps out again, patterned in a way that just screams_ Mini_, and I feel my mouth try to quirk up into a smile, repressed into something less happy.

"Yeah. Come in," I say with pent up breath, nervous.

I don't recall feeling this nervous when I found Grace hanging out in my room, unannounced. But this feels different. More...nerve-wracking somehow. My eyes rapidly dart around looking for...anything out of place. Anything weird. Anything weirder.

I catch sight of my sports bra, and reach for it hastily, just as Mini tentatively opens the door.

"You okay?," she tries, looking somewhat discomforted as I toss the bra under my chair, and out of sight.

"Fine," I say, removed, "I just...I...sorry for the freak out earlier," I say softly, not quite meeting her eyes.

"I mean...with my dad..."

She moves towards my bed, and sits down on a corner edge, then looks around with sudden interest.

"I like your room," she tries for ease, "it's...cozy, somehow. Feels sort of...I don't know..."

I chew at my pinky finger as she inspects my life through posters and records, and stop motion animation cut outs.

"This is pretty...," she trails off, her hands floating over my percale bedding, tracing loops around printed flowers.

"Not what you'd expect, huh? Not for a fr-," I stop suddenly, something painful squeezing around my chest as I catch her studying my bedspread, my rose pillowcase.

"What?," and she looks up with an expression of near-alarm, her arms darting from the pillow to my hand so rapidly that I don't even feel the additional warmth at first.

"No...I...I'm sorry, Franky. I am," she tries again, studying our hands, her fingers - now interwoven with mine.

I just...stare at our hands.

"I know," I say to the hands, while I feel the soft addition of skin brush against my face, and tap against my cheek.

"You look like you're gnawing your own finger off or something there, Franks," Mini quips, while I dislodge the battered digit from my teeth, my jaws.

And survey the damage.

Probably a little too prominently.

"Fuck! Franky...you_ are!..._you're bleeding."

_Bleeding_.

I should say, "shit" or "oops."

Something to indicate that this was a mistake. A nervous habit. Unintentional.

**_I shouldn't say..._**

"I know..."

Mini's eyes catch mine, and she looks...frightened. Just for a nanosecond.

Probably scared to sleep in the same room as the freak, now. The fucking psycho dyke freak.

I try again.

With better words.

"I...do this sometimes, when I'm upset. Even when I don't know I'm upset. But when I am, deep down. I sometimes...do. I don't know why."

"How can you not know when you're upset?"

"I just...tell myself I'm not sad, or angry. And then I'm not sad or angry. Problem solved. Most of the time it works."

I breathe into my lap, my head down, not knowing why I'm telling her any of **this.**

Just knowing that everything else is lining up easily enough that tonight I might be able to tell her what she needs to hear so that she doesn't think I'm completely nuts.

Certainly not everything.

Certainly not.

_But maybe..._

"Franks...that doesn't make sense. Telling yourself that you're not sad? That doesn't mean that you're not. That's just like...mega huge denial."

I press against my eyes. I press against my eyes until pin pricks of white-green light blast out from the blackness.

_"Franky..."_

"It's like I told you earlier, Mini. You and Liv. I go somewhere else, in my head."

"No...you said that you imagined you were somewhere else, so you wouldn't feel weird..."

"Well, I make myself go somewhere else, when I'm upset. When it happens."

"When _what_ happens?"

"When_ anything _bad happens. Or, when I do this."

"Do "this"? What the fuck, Franky? _**Hurt yourself**_, you mean?"

I bite down on my lip, and bloody hell:_ damn you for making it hurt, Mini. For making it hurt in a way that burning and cutting never have hurt me, and never could._

**_'Damn you, Mini... for making it real.'_**

"It doesn't feel much like pain, though," I say, brushing blood against my skirt, oddly transfixed.

She rises silently, and surveys my hand, which isn't really bleeding badly or anything...

"Franky...this is...serious."

I scoff, despite myself, and mouth out the word_ "serious", _a bubbling hysteria tugging at my lungs.

_Serious. Serious. Serious?_

_Fucking 'serious'?_

"**This** isn't serious. This is nothing. **Absolutely nothing**," I stress, mostly to my lap, my knees. Anywhere but the direction of Mini and her pretty little face.

I suddenly feel a tide of shame.

And then suddenly my hand is caught up in hers again, but her grasp this time is so much more..._tender?_

No.

_Careful._

Like she thinks SHE's the one to upset me.

"How can this not hurt, Franks?," and I feel her rub the skin around the inflammed, cut finger.

"How can it not?"

I shake my head. Back and forth. Back and forth.

"It doesn't," I breathe. "Or maybe...it does. But not enough...it never hurts **enough**..."

"Enough for what?," Mini tries again, but her face has lost the wide-grin smile that I used to associate with her, with Mini.

She looks downright solemn and strangely mature at the moment, if you want to know the truth.

And not at all happy.

**Concerned.**

I hate the word, and I hate the expression. Especially on her face.

And I hate that I'm the one who put it there in the first place.

"I can't...talk about it. Any of it," I say to my knees, case in point.

I must be so fucking out of my mind to be talking right now about any of it, anyway.

_Talking like this._

_I don't even talk to my shrink like this._

_I never admit it._

I lie about it.

I tell Madeline that I don't "notice."

I tell Madeline that the cutting was from stress.

That I know it was wrong, now.

That I'll never do it again.

_What did they give me? Matty, and Liv?_

_Not even coke could make me this...open._

I pull my hand away from Mini's, suddenly feeling rotten and ugly. So ugly.

**"Franky..."**

I look up, needing her to know. Know without me actually saying anything. Not with words.

"If I could say it, if I could explain...then I wouldn't have to do this..."

She looks...torn.

"Do your dad's know?"

I reach for my gray hoody, and pull it over my head, suddenly chilled.

"_Franky_...," she tries again, her voice holding a note of insistence.

"Yes, they know."

She looks...like she's just figured something out.

And nothing, in this set-up, could be good.

"Is this why you have to go see someone tomorrow?"

_Bravo, Mini. Bravo._

_You've figured it out._

_I'm a fucking little headcase._

I get up swiftly, before she can ask me any more questions.

"Do you want an oversized t-shirt to sleep in or something? You're too tall for my pajamas, I think..."

Mini gives me a slight smile through my mirror. The lines don't cut through her face at all.

The mirror doesn't distort her features.

Just mine.

_

* * *

_

When I come back from the washroom, I catch Mini hovering near my study desk.

Not my stop-motion station - but my smaller oak table that's currently stashed with notebooks and highlighters and little bendy purple erasers that Jeff got me from China Town, that smell like plastic grapes.

"Is this you?," she asks fondly, her voice taking on a measure of sweetness. "You were so cute, Franks!"

I glance over to the frame she's currently holding.

It _**is** _me.

Taken when I was not quite 6.

My hair was longer at that age than it has been for the last decade.

"I found a packaged toothbrush, if you want to freshen up," I say to the wall, not really taking in the photo, and not really commenting on it, either.

"You looked like...a little elf. Or a pixie," Mini breathes, ignoring my offerings of clean toothbrushes and Aqua Fresh.

Mini smiles to herself, as if not surprised by my petite stature, even as a child. I guess she's giving me a compliment.

"And you had curly hair," she muses aloud, when I don't respond.

"It goes all wavy when it falls past my shoulders. Still would, I imagine."

"How old were you here? Four?"

"Almost six," I say shortly, hating myself for not being able to just...**_be_**. With her.

Hating myself for feeling so constrained and for something else, too. **Something.**

Some emotion. Not obvious sadness. Because obvious sadness makes me feel like crying.

And I know a normal person would probably know this feeling. Would probably be able to identify it.

But I can't.

Because I'm not normal.

* * *

I roll out a camper mattress and stash it on the floor, wedging it between my bed and my work station, before I roll out a red sleeping bag and toss that down too, scrunching under the covers as Mini finally trundles over a second later.

She's freshly changed in the most massive shirt that I have, so it billows at her sides. It doesn't come as nearly far down on her legs, though, so I wait until she manages to fully climb under all the bedding, and is well covered, before turning back to her.

"I'm going to sleep now," I say quietly, feeling that wretched sadness swell up in my chest again. It started with Mini's questions, or rather - her assertions - that what I was doing to myself was wrong. Wrong.

_Hurtful-wrong._

_Screwed-up-wrong._

And now, after looking at that photo, and commenting on how I was...what had she called me? "Cute"? Like a "pixie"?

Well, it's making this horrible feeling worse.

To think, I was so little and so trusting and so...much better back then. Not untroubled, but not damaged like now.

I had a chance then. I had a chance, even after so much shit. Even after all of it, all that early garbage.

But it took eight years before I found my (for all intents and purposes) real parents. It took eight years of being bounced about like a bad cheque before I had a real family.

So to think of me, then, as a little kid - smiling away like this good-natured, love-craving little alien...

Well, it _hurts._

It's making the raw feeling worse.

And, honestly, if Mini wasn't here, I'd probably just take my clipper lighter and hold it against my chest until I had to bite down on my lips to keep from crying out against the heat, and the blistering scent of burning skin.

And then I'd bundle up my chest with even more gauze, and fall asleep to the hissing pain of a flame burn. The pain a type of white-noise in itself, but not of sound. Of emotions. Blanketing out the stronger, more disrupting upset.

Obviously, I can't do this _tonight._

Obviously, I'm going to have to find a different way of distracting myself from these feelings, now that Mini's here.


	4. Chapter 4

**Title - After the Apocalypse - Part 4**

**Author - Kourion **

**Summary: "I'm lost in thought, studying the photo - the black and white photo of Franky squished between her two dads, smiling so warmly that an outsider would never suspect such a tortured past." **Franky focused/ Minky-tones/ noncon warning.

**A/N: **Please note: this story is written in a very, very atypical format. Experimental, you could call it. It may not be your cup of tea for that reason, or - more likely, due to violence and noncon situations detailed within. Proceed with caution.

* * *

_"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage." - Lao Tzu _

* * *

**m i n i' s p o v**

* * *

Franky's room is..._consoling_. If such a thing makes sense. I mean, it feels very soft and muted and safe. Even in the relative darkness - with nothing but moonlight to illuminate the space - there isn't a bit of spookiness. You think there would be, with the clanking radiator, and the Alfred Hitchcock posters and the goofy looking hamster (his cage tells me his name is _Giblet_) staring at me in nervous study. But it's not. It feels protective, really, with its scent of sandalwood _(incense?) _and something else...an aroma of cedar chips, gingerbread biscuits and coffee grounds. Not really 'girly' scents of body spray or air fresheners. No, the scents here are real scents of real activities - drinking coffee, lighting incense, changing a little animal's cage. There is no artifice here. No falseness. Just truth, unconcealed.

I glance over at Franky's work station table, where an old 80's Sony Dream-machine alarm clock blurts out the time to me in red squared numbers: 2:56 am. Apparently, although I don't feel tired at all. And I still can't sleep, even though by my estimate, Franky's been resting for the better part of an hour.

Studying her briefly, I quickly reevaluate my position - _resting_ might be too generous a term. Her body doesn't look restful, her face doesn't look restful. There's no peace in her sleeping expression.

Instead, her hair looks dark auburn, not ginger, and plastered to her face. I can see where sweat has worked through her Henley pajama top. I can see how her clothes stick to her skin.

And it's not hot in here at all.

I really don't know what to do.

I mean, she's sleeping, and from the prescription bottle of medicine I saw in her bathroom, I doubt sleep comes to her easily. In my defense, I wasn't snooping through her stuff - just looking for toothpaste, and I noticed the little yellow and white vial on the lower shelf. I'm pretty sure it's sleeping medicine, too, because not only did the bottle read, _Fitzgerald, Francesca Alice_, _Imipramine, 125 mg, take 1 capsule 2 to 3 hours before expected sleep_, Franky had also plastered the container in shooting star stickers and gold-glint pen marked _zzzzz's, _as if to make the container - the substance within - more whimsical, more attractive. The little doodles made me smile for a second, before I realized that this wasn't something she had shared with me. This wasn't something she had wanted me to *know.* It's something I took in by accident, so I shut the cabinet door quickly and made do with a bottle of Listerine and the spare wrapped toothbrush that Franky had laid out for me on the countertop.

But now...now I'm not sure what to do. I'm not even sure what to do when her small mouth suddenly gasps open like a pucker fish, struggling for oxygen, her face contorting into something that makes *me* want to cry.

**_'Damn you Matty. Damn you for taking advantage of her'_**

She's folded up into herself like a small burrowing animal, and she looks so...alone. Her cries are so quiet, her words so soft that I can't hear what she's saying. I can only guess that she's saying the same word over and over again. Almost like a mantra.

After a bit of focus, I realize that she's saying _please_. Her fearful expression, her small size, her words...all come together in such a way that I feel something jump-start my heart.

**_'Nothing is right here. Nothing is right.'_**

Getting up slowly, I try to move without sound, and reach for her strewn blankets. Pulling the cloth over her body, I can't help but be shocked by how cold she is, despite her sweating, so I decide to pull an extra quilt over her body for additional warmth. Which turns out to be a very bad move on my part, because instead of comforting her, all it seems to do is generate...

**screaming.**

Horrible screaming.

And for a couple seconds, my brain just turns off. I don't move, I don't blink, I don't breathe. I just back up against the wall as if caught in a nightmare of my own, the whole scene just so unexpected and...

"Bloody hell!," I hear the harsh gasp of a cry shut down, and turn to see Franky's Dads quickly entering the room. I continue to stay where I am - transfixed, numb.

Jeff, Franky's older Dad, mobilizes quickly and is near her bed before I can warn him not to touch her. As it turns out, he already knows _not_ to do this, and just crouches down low on his haunches, his hands coming close to Franky, but not really making connection. Just talking very softly, the words barely discernible over the strangled screaming, _"It's over. It's over now, Franky."_

Which is so laughably simplistic that I push down on my own guilt, and make a move to approach her, too. Geoff stops me, his hand lightly coming to my wrist, tapping insistently until I pause, and turn to look at him.

He looks almost as white as Franky, his face almost as grim.

"I think we should go downstairs for a bit."

I bite down my retort, that _no, I'm not gonna leave my friend, thank you muchly_, but something about his eyes stops me from being so flippant.

Something about his eyes tells me that he knows exactly what this _was_, and that it's nothing new.

* * *

"You looked spooked," Geoff tells me glibly, as I drop down into 'Franky's chair.'

I just stare at my hands. My fucking manicured-to-perfection hands, while I think of my friend upstairs, no longer screaming, but...

"You're not abandoning her. I asked you to come downstairs," The Dad tells me pointedly, and I realize that it must be inordinately hard for Franky to hide anything in this family. To lie about anything. Which may have its benefits. _It might also feel incredibly..._

The thought falls away as Geoff opens up an oak kitchenette door, and roots around for a couple mugs.

"We have a bear mug, and a pig mug left. Everything else is in the dishwasher," he tells me not unkindly, despite the stark somberness of his features.

I indicate that I'll take the pig mug, which is so extravagantly whimsical that just looking at the porcelin pig features seems to be calming me down a bit.

"Chamomile, mint, ginger, jasmine, uhhh,]..." and I hear him root around for some more selections, "cinnamon?"

I really doubt I'll be going back to sleep tonight.

"Nothing with caffeine?," I say hopefully.

"We try not to stock up on caffeinated beverages here," and as I formulate a response, Geoff grins - although it's a toned-down version, to be sure. "The Pepsi Max is all Franky's doing."

"Ahh. That makes sense. She likes her soft drinks,"**_stoprambling_**, "ginger?"

Geoff nods briskly, and removes two herbal packets, then goes to turn on the kettle, depositing each tea bag in the mugs, before coming round to the kitchen table, taking an opposing seat.

Letting out a sigh, he starts.

"So, I take it...Franky never really told you about...any of this?"

_'Any of this'_ is perhaps the plainest, non-revealing description for what I've experienced tonight. But, in a way, I like that Geoff's so cautious with Franky, and her privacy.

"Does this happen a lot?," I state quietly, not really comfortable with the subject matter.

"If you mean...does she wake us up screaming like that?...well, it happens. Not as much as it used to. A couple of times a month, now. I'm sorry if she scared you."

"Are they...night terrors?," I still don't know what I've witnessed. I've had bad dreams. I've never woke up screaming from any of them.

"In a sense," and Geoff rises from his space as the kettle starts to whistle. I swallow down a lump in my throat as I hear the sweet gurgling of water from the canister flowing into the mugs, the clinking of spoons against mugs. He returns a few moments later with saucers over each animal cup to help the tea 'steep.'

I poke my pig mug, touch the smoothness of its glossed hand painted surface.

"I thought night terrors were...I dunno, I thought only little kids got those..."

"Well, these are a different breed of animal. They're not really night terrors, in the truest sense," Geoff says to his bear mug, not quite meeting my eyes. "These are memories, more than anything else."

The ginger burns my throat as he speaks, and when I'm done swallowing, I still have no idea what to say.

Geoff plows onwards. "Has she...has she _shared _any of this with you?," and his voice is curious, testing.

I pick at a cuticle on my finger.

"She...doesn't really get into it with us. I mean, sometimes things will happen, or have happened and...she..."

I really should be talking to Franky about this. This...feels like a betrayal.

"What happened earlier? Yesterday?," Geoff queries, his face leery, as if he's expecting me to divulge some awful, treacherous story.

I exhale, not knowing what is right to share, what is wrong to hide.

"She...well. I don't know, really. Something happened with her and another friend of ours - Matty? - and, well... I actually have no idea what_ happened_. She just...she was very upset for awhile."

"I see. Panic attack?"

I nod briefly. "Yeah, something like that."

Geoff puts his mug down, and mumbles something about how he can create a makeshift bed for me on the sofa.

I nod off into space, my eyes locking onto the Rupert mug Franky had been drinking from earlier. It seems so terribly old fashioned and sad, now.

* * *

_"No, I didn't chuck it out, young lady..."_

My ears prick up at the sound of a cd player blaring out a techno beat. Something both melancholic and meditative. 80's sync music.

Probably something from Franky's own stash.

"Well, what am I supposed to drink then? I mean, it's gone!"

And there we have it: Franky's voice. Sounding disproportionately pissed for someone who just can't locate a _certain beverage_. She also sounds comfortably snarky, considering how she woke up her parents last night.

I rub sleep from my eyes, and messily comb through my hair with my hands, surveying the oversized sleep shirt and socks that Franky gave to me the night before.

* * *

Tentatively, I reach the kitchen, and - lo and behold - Franky_ is _up. Along with Geoff. I don't see her other dad, really, but I have a sinking feeling that Franky is a little more bold and assertive with her younger dad, anyway.

It's sort of a weird sight, considering I've usually only seen her dispensing sage advice, or forgiving people, or - last night - screaming. But I've never seen her like this: acting like a regular teen.

"Ahh, good morning Mini," Geoff greets me warmly, while I catch Franky - her back to me - tensing. Her neck, shoulders, back freezing up into a hard shell before she willfully releases the tension.

When she turns to me it's with a wary half-smile, as her dad clarifies if I'd like "_Crêpes_ or...would you prefer a feta cheese omelet?" for breakfast.

Geoff is a sous chef. I think that's what Franky told me, once. I highly doubt that he knows how to make a breakfast containing less than 1,000 calories. It's utterly remarkable, really, that Franky has the slight pixie-lite figure that she has. If I lived in this house, I'd either be the size of a house, or sicking up every meal.

I try to return the gesture, the smile, but her eyes are off somewhere else now, and then she's moving onto the pantry, scrimmaging around in the dark, while Geoff mock-hollers to Franky, "omelet or crêpe, princess?"

I recall the term of affection from the previous evening. _Princess_. I mean, don't get me wrong, Franky obviously needs all the emotional buoying-up that she can get. But princess seems so...unfitting of her, especially this morning, as she returns from the pantry...semi-triumphantly holding up a can of Pepsi Max, her hair slicked back into a gelled style so reminiscent of a little boy from the 1950's that it's almost beyond belief. Decked out in gingham checkered shirt and coveralls, no less! My internal response is somewhere halfway between _"aww"_ and _"good god, this girl needs a personal shopper!"_

"Behold Dad: liquid sustenance in a convenient pop-tab tin," Franky quips, still ignoring her father's question, while I mumble something about cereal, and not being a big breakfast eater. From the corner of my eye, I see Franky give me a look which is not quite pained and not quite believing, before slouching down into the chair besides me, passing me a box of corn flakes.

"That's not sustenance, lovey. That's carbonated, overpriced sugar water with caramel colouring and chemicals..."

Franky bites the inside of her cheek, then smiles widely, "no sugar, Geoff! It's a health drink. Listen: _aspartame, potassium benzoate, acesulfame potassium, calcium disodium EDTA, and panax ginseng. _See? Good stuff. Two hits of potassium, some calcium, and ginseng. It's almost, like, you know...a super food or something. Like acai, and goji berries."

Geoff studies Franky for a few seconds, as if trying to determine if she is serious or not, before muttering, "I think I'll make us guys some omelets..."

I feel somewhat badly at his look of disappointment until Franky responds with something that suspiciously sounds like, _go ahead, eat all the cryogenically frozen chicken foetuses that you want, _which actually makes the man laugh... So all I can take from the exchange is that Franky uses black humor and relative insolence often enough that her Dad's are used to her remarks. And totally unfazed by them.

Possibly even_ reassured _by them. Because, really, after last night...I know that I'm just relieved that she's back to her old self.

And old self, indeed - as Franky, today, is washed free from makeup. There is no trace of mascara, or the purple eyeshadow that she had taken to wearing on occasion over the last few weeks. Nor is there any lip gloss, no lacy top, no skirt. No finger waves.

She's freshly scrubbed down to white skin, sans adornments. The small feminine touches of her yesterday-outfit have been replaced with complete, unflinching androgyny. And the only thing belying her bad night, really, seems to be just how pale she is. Every freckle on her face stands out against a white sea of skin, and her eyes somehow look far more hazel surrounded by such extreme pallor.

If she were diabetic or something, I'd be worried about hypoglycemia.

"Corn Flakes aren't life sustaining, Franky. You can't eat them for every meal," Geoff informs her seriously, while he cracks an egg into a sizzling pan, adds a fair chunk of butter to the mix.

_'No, I'm definitely glad I'm not eating that meal... I'd only have to run for two hours to burn it all off...'_

"Wanna bet?," Franky baits, while taking minuscule nibbles of the flakes, dry, in her bowl. Coated in a truly generous helping of brown sugar. Actually, now that I watch more carefully, Franky isn't really eating the corn flakes at all... She's licking the sugar off the cereal, then depositing the cereal on a little napkin by her side. If Geoff notices, he doesn't comment as he serves up two incredibly fluffy, feta topped omelets onto two white and blue plates, and retreats up the stairs, but not before a quick reminder that he will drive Franky to her appointment.

_'No doubt worried that she's going to bail...'_

Alone, now.

And the anxiety level rises 100% almost immediately.

"We have other cereal," Franky starts, almost carefully. It's strange, really. I don't care about what cereals the Fitzgerald's stock. It's obviously just a ploy to buy time.

"Nah. I'm fine," and I wave away her offering, wishing instead for something like a grapefruit, or a grape and melon salad. And a big cup of coffee. "How...how about you?"

Franky looks a little confused for a second, before she realizes the deeper meaning of my question.

"I'm fine..."

"**_Franky_**..."

"Alright, I'm not 'fine,' but I'm..."

"Going to be?," I try to offer, helpfully.

She nods curtly, takes a swig of cola. Puts the can down not a second later.

"I'm sorry if I scared you," she whispers to the table. "I mean, I don't know why it happens or how to make it _not_ happen... But the very first time I ever had one, it scared the hell out of my Dads."

_"One"_, I guess being...her night terror episode _things_. Whatever it was that I witnessed last night.

"So you haven't always had them? I mean, they only started after...you know...being adopted?"

Her eyes flutter shut, and I figure that I've said the wrong thing, because her voice comes out rushed, insistent: "this isn't their fault, Mini. They didn't cause this."

"You were...screaming, Franks!"

I see her bite her lip, take a deep breath, look me in the eye. I can sense how hard that much is for her, and it makes me feel awful that she's nervous to so much as look at me.

"My Dads have _never hurt me_. They've never hit me. And _they've_ never touched me. They're...really great parents."

And while that should be it, I know that there's so much more to this story. The way she's emphasized "_they've"_ having caused chills to run up my spine, and my stomach to tighten uncomfortably, as if I've eaten too much and I'm going to sick up.

"If someone else..."

"Matty didn't do anything! _Why won't you believe me?"_

"If _anyone_ hurt you...you know it's not your fault, right?"

Franky's hands dropped to her lap, clenched up into two little fists. Not angry.

But nervous.

I want to take her hand, but something tells me to give her some space right now.

After a moment she speaks, "It's so fucking complicated, Mini. It's...I don't know how to start, where to start, how to stop. And it never fixes it."

"It?," I try to clarify, antsy now for some coffee.

"What good does_ talking _do? It doesn't fixed fucked up people."

I study her briefly, rapidly. Not liking her self-assessment at all.

"Everyone has problems, Franky. At least you...never took your hurt out on other people. You never bullied other people...That says a lot about you, ok?"

Franky exhales then, gives a self-deprecating little snort, little dash of her head.

Squashes dry corn flakes with the edge of her spoon, until they are powdered down to nothing.

"I had a bully once, you know? Like...a bad one."

"Mmm?"

She nods to the table. "Yeah, back in Oxford. Her name was Riga. She was..."

I know I can't talk. I know if I talk, the spell will be broken. I know if I talk, Franky will never get this out.

Maybe not ever.

So I remain very still, almost corpse-still. I just listen. It's the best thing I can do for her, I think.

"She was just...so cruel. I mean, I get it. Kids get bullied._ Freaks _get bullied. Life goes on. Yadda, yadda, whatever, right?"

"Franks..._don't_. Please."

"If it was just words and stuff, everything might have been okay... If it was just pictures, but-"

I see her gulp down a huge swallow of air. Still her hands against the table. When she moves them a moment later, the faint outline of small sweaty imprints lingers.

"One day, after sports, she...waited and just...went...totally ballistic. I mean, I never changed with the other girls. I tried to change in the stalls...to avoid... everyone really."

_'Yeah, I've noticed, Franks.'_

"And I was always the last one to change, and the last one to leave - because, for me - for people like me - it's safer. And we had sports as our last class, and that helped too..."

She stops to take a sip of Pepsi, and I can't help but wonder if her mouth is as dry as mine.

"She just came up behind me that day - Riga, I mean - and I knew it was her, but I didn't turn around. I just thought, if I ignored her and was really quiet, maybe she'd leave me alone, right?"

Franky looks at me now, her eyes large and full of intense...need. As if they are pleading with me to understand something that makes no sense.

As if she's...complicit in something, when she could in no way be at fault.

"There was this moment of calm... Like intense calm. And it scared me. It really fucking terrified me, because I knew something awful was coming. It was too calm."

Franky brings up her thumb, bites down as if to chew a nail, then pulls her hand away, looking pained.

"She slammed my head into the wall before I could even turn around, and I just got really dizzy and then she kicked me over and over again. I threw up in the middle of it because...I was so scared. I knew it was stupid, cause it's not like she'd kill me...but for a second I thought...maybe she_ would_."

I reach for her hand then. I can't help myself.

I'm relieved when she doesn't pull away.

"She and her...gang...they tied me up and did stuff...and took pictures. I...don't really remember it too well, because...well, apparently I had a concussion."

Oh fucking _shit._

"Franky," but I don't trust my voice to say much more than that. I don't trust my voice at all.

"I had a skull fracture, but no one knew it, and it was only cause I wouldn't stop sicking up. The janitor found me - in my underwear Mini, covered in sick. My Dad's got a call from the school saying they were going to take me to this medical arts building for x-rays. I mean, that's how much they hated me. That's how much of a freak I am, alright? So freakish they wanted to break me. So they_ broke my skull_."

And she sounds so much like this wounded little kid then, that it takes all my power not to cry.

"Stop, Franky, STOP."

She looks up at me then, imploring me to understand. The guilt on her face is what hurts the most to see. The fucking guilt.

"It...if I had been normal, it wouldn't have happened. None of it."

"None of what? She should have gone to jail, Franky! You didn't do anything wrong!"

Franky bites her lip, pushes her bowl of cereal away.

"She was _mad_ at me. She blamed me because everyone found out,**_ everyone..._** even the teachers. Because they hurt my arm, and I couldn't *hide* that. I couldn't hide a_ sling_..."

I'm completely lost.

"She beat you up _because_...someone hurt your arm?"

Something about this feels so wrong. So scarily wrong, and yet I can't put my finger on what it is that is making me feel scared.

What is making me feel so bloody apprehensive.

"Not because someone hurt my arm. Because her boyfriend_ chose me _over her. Because half the rugby team stood around and watched, and_ laughed_."

_'She blamed me,'_ echoes in my head, clashing awfully with the images that are coming to mind.

"Franky...what did they _do_?"

Franky's whole body is shaking in...anger, or grief, or fear or...maybe all three, I can't be sure.

"You mean you _don't know_? You can't_ figure it out_?," she hisses dismally, her face contorted by such severe loathing that it's a little scary to witness. "What all guys _want, _Mini!"

I feel sick.

Like truly...nauseous.

She chokes back a sob, wipes her eyes, turns and studies the table. The wood grain patterns.

"You know what the worst part was, really? I mean, aside from the sex..."

"No, Franky, NO...listen to me, honey. That's not sex! That's _ra-_"

"I know what is was Mini! But it was still my fault, cause I just...froze up, and I should have-"

"Franky...you did everything you could!"

Because...there's no way a girl winds up with her arm in a sling for nothing. No...Franky fought. But she's tiny and she's soft spoken, and even if she fought, it wouldn't take much to physically overpower her.

"The worst part," she tries again - and I realize that my protests are not really being heard at all - aren't really sinking in, "is that I was so excited for that party, too. Cause I got this _special invite _and everything..."

"Franky," I whisper, "_stop_."

"I was so happy. I mean, I dressed up. I wore...this blouse my dad got me, and a skirt and fucking _barrettes_, Mini! Geoff french braided my hair. I wore _mascara_. I thought...," and the words stop in a half-laugh, half-sob that seems to suck half the oxygen out of the room.

"Franky, come on. Don't do this to yourself..."

Her eyes are focused not too far off into the distance now. Wide and dilated and totally caught up in this sudden, explosive need to_ tell_. Which, more or less, is what she said not five minutes ago. That if she started talking, it would be hard for her to stop.

I guess, in a sense, I understand. That all this shit is stuff she pushed away and pushed away and denied and fought, but, of course, all that pain was still there. If you go around dismantling an emotional dam, the fallout is probably going to be pretty bad.

"Mini?," she tries again after a few moments of silence, and I realize that her voice sounds more aggravated now - now, saying my name. Moreso than it had when she had admitted to being attacked.

"Mmm?," I breathe in response, slowly reaching for one cold hand, bringing it into mine, cupping it.

The girl is freezing.

"I thought I actually looked _pretty, _Mini. Not beautiful, but maybe...sorta ok. Maybe_ sorta pretty_. And then they did that, and it's like..._it's like_..."

Her voice has risen a notch, taken on a note of shrillness.

"It's okay, Franky."

"No...it's NOT. It's..._I'm not a freak for nothing_, you know? There's...there's always a reason... I just don't want to be seen like that anymore. To have guys look at me like that, alright?"

And damn everything, damn my wanting to _give her space_. As I move closer towards her, she stops tracing out swirly patterns on the table, her corn flakes long forgotten. Her features look so little-kid scared, or like a puppy with its tail between his legs that it takes everything in my power not to grab her and pull her to me.

"C'mere," I encourage, and from where I'm standing and where she's sitting, she really doesn't even have to move much.

Instead, she sort of lets her head fall over to my torso, and this feels familiar. This feels like...yesterday, except the sadness today is more apparent. The grief...more apparent. The fear, not so much. She was panicked yesterday. Today she seems...so terribly small. So young.

So hurt.

Which is why I'm simultaneously surprised, and not surprised at all, when she moves from her position, and falls into me. A second later I feel those small, small arms wrap around my waist, and her face connect with my torso. I will myself to relax. To just...be cool, be strong. Be a good friend to a friend in need. Despite these strange feelings she keeps evoking in me, especially lately. Like now, all hurt, and part of me feels like just...holding her, sure. But part of me, and this is the part that I find disturbing - feels like kissing her.

I will my heartbeat to slow down.

"You_ are _pretty, Franks," I whisper against her hair, knowing she's getting this. Hoping a little too eagerly that she's _hearing_ this. Really, really hearing.

"I don't feel pretty. I feel ugly."

And she's not doing it for reassurance, either. Because although I find her very pretty in this atypical, elfin way - it's clear from the conviction in her voice that she doesn't really see her the way I see her. Only now, every thing that I've called oddball in the past - makes a sort of tragic sense. Dressing up in boys' clothing. Doing_ everything in her power to appear _**genderless**.

My guilt is back with a vengeance, too. I mean, I played a part in her crappy self image, didn't I? Even if I felt pretty low about it all by the next day. Even if I wanted to apologize properly (but never did). Too chicken-shit to...bring it up. Apologize properly. But how she feels...is sort of the culmination of all the people she's been around, and how all those people have treated her. I've played a role in this. In who she is, now.

Maybe not the biggest role. But a role.

"I'm...sorry, Franks. If I...made you feel...worse. Less...pretty. Cause you are. To me."

She pulls away then, and her eyes look red, but not teary. Her posture looks stronger, not wilted.

Apparently, even just a little bit of support...builds her up. In that sense, I think she's terribly resilient.

"So," I try for ease, noting that her face has gone from pale to ruddy. From my last comment, or just - everything that has been discussed, in general - I'm not sure.

I try to think of something -_ anything _- lacking in emotional intensity to sort of break this newfound awkwardness. Although the crack in my voice belies my upset, too, I think.

"You had long hair, before, huh?," I query with a raised eyebrow, remembering the supreme vauge way Franky had referred to herself as a kid. As if, her hair had been short for most of her life, and only had been longer as a small child. Of course, I can also gather that she was reluctant to share anything more of her past for the very reason that the story wasn't a simple one. Wasn't an easy one to tell.

Franky looks at me, then laughs, wipes her eyes a bit more.

"Yeah," she coughs out, giving me an almost guilty expression."Pretty long. Ringlets. After...Riga, and everything... I cut it all off. I just took my arts supply scissors from my satchel and..._snip, snip_," Franky makes cutting noises, moving her hands in a goofy motion indicating scissors. "My dad's were so upset about everything else, that they didn't really get mad at me or anything."

I give her a smirk, imagining the scenario.

"That was pretty bold. I would never do that. Like...not in a million years."

Franky smiles at her feet, almost abashedly. Her blue elastic braces catch my eye, given the intensity of the smile.

"It was pretty impulsive and_ stupid_, is what it was, Mini. I mean, I did a really...bad job."

I mock check out her hair, going for an appraising look, before declaring the job_ "befitting."_

"No...this is nothing. My Dad's...they took me to a salon like _right after the hospital_. I had made a real mess of things. The basically had to...shave my head. Not quite, but...here. I'll show you."

She hops up then, ambles over to a small wall division housing various ferns and photos, before unclasping one frame from the wall.

"That's from last year. See?," and see I do, because - _she's absolutely correct _- her hair is almost completely buzzed off.

I'm lost in thought, studying the photo - the black and white photo of Franky squished between her two dads, smiling so warmly that an outsider would never suspect such a tortured past. And given the shortness of the cut, all that...horror...would have still been so recent. Probably only a couple weeks old, at best.

When I look up, Franky's watching me intensely, her mouth quirked in a _'told you so' _grimace.

"You look pretty here too, Franks. Nothing you do to yourself is going to change that."

Because, really, what I've learned this morning -_ more than anything else _- is just how much someone can cover up how they really feel. Just how much Franky, in particular, can cover up her feelings. Cover up what's eating her from the inside out, and present an image of being strong and stable, when everything is just the opposite.


End file.
